(Continuing the seven-part LOTRW mini-series)
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” (we all remember this question from our childhood – perhaps not that fondly)
Stephen Covey, in his 1989 book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, adopted a different spin. He asked readers to imagine their own funerals: what would they like their family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, bosses, employees to say about them? At the time, he did acknowledge that some might find the image troubling, but encouraged readers to work through it just the same. And he made clear the “end” was not the end of our lives, but rather the end as in our lives’ purpose – the aim, the aspiration.
What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you hope folks will say at your funeral? You and I benefit from regular intervals self-evaluation along such lines. We need to ask: are we becoming the person we always wanted to be, dreamed we’d be? Are we doing what we always wanted to do? Or do we find ourselves doing something less? Succeeding at something that masquerades as the vision but in reality is coming at the expense of the vision?
To Mr. Covey, a dozen years ago,
Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.
He argued that
One of the best ways to incorporate Habit 2 into your life is to develop a Personal Mission Statement. It focuses on what you want to be and do. It is your plan for success. It reaffirms who you are, puts your goals in focus, and moves your ideas into the real world. Your mission statement makes you the leader of your own life. You create your own destiny and secure the future you envision.
Personal Mission Statement? The most important bit is about your uniqueness and living a life and building relationships with others in ways congruent with your moral code and spiritual beliefs: being trustworthy, loving, faithful, dependable, and all the rest.
But for purposes of this post let’s focus on the career part, the work part – and how to look at that amid the present upheaval: wrenching changes in US policy towards climate change and environmental issues; chainsaw-downsizing of federal agencies; eye-watering uncertainties for the adjoining corporate-, university-, and NGO-sector communities enabling such work. With some over-simplification, Mr. Covey’s message in this context would be something like: if we’re focused on the next research paper, the current project or product, this year’s budget, then we risk being overwhelmed. Instead, we need to remain fixed on the long-term goal.
Some generic version of which for LOTRW readers might be:
Do all I can to enable the world’s present and future population to live satisfying, fulfilling lives on a planet that:
- Though generous with food, water, and other natural resources, is finite/limited;
- Is dangerous, even though only intermittently; and
- Though seemingly robust, is actually fragile – vulnerable to human despoilation in many ways.
Readers should formulate their own, more tailored versions. Want a concrete example? Here’s one. Dick Hallgren, a former director of the National Weather Service and Permanent US Representative to the WMO (and much, much more), used to describe his agency’s mandate this way:
The National Weather Service mission is to protect lives and property.
Then, if he felt you didn’t get his point, he would add, for emphasis: The mission is not simply to forecast the weather, or even to make weather forecasts more accurate. If you stop there, you haven’t done your job. Your job is to save lives and property.[1]
So to repeat: if you haven’t done so already, you might start developing your own. That’s the kind of thing Stephen Covey is talking about/looking for. What is your true long-term objective – the point on the horizon that is your true goal despite the storms you’re weathering where you are now? The standard by which you wished to be judged at every point on life’s journey?
An aside: In turbulent times, as you develop and implement your personal mission statement you might well take heart. You might begin to realize that
- The world need for what you have to offer is not going to go away any time soon.
- There will always be a shortage of people like you who have the skills, experience, vision, and motivation to address that need. The world will always be looking to you and others like you for help.
- What suspense there is, if any, falls on institutions – governments, companies, universities and like entities. Which will history reveal to be the agents of change? Which will history bypass?
In closing: to be proactive, you make your proactivity tangible and beneficial, it helps to make a mission statement, to begin with the end in mind.
And that in turn will lead you to the next habit: Put first things first. More soon.
[1] Today he might add a bit about growing the economy, or explain how that’s covered under protecting lives and property, but you get the idea.